


And Will Stand Witness

by Moorishflower



Category: Doctor Who, Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-20
Updated: 2010-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:05:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Imagine a million years of loneliness. Of never speaking. A million years of starving to death, but never dying. Unable to bear the sight of yourself, and so you hide your face in your hands, and eventually grow so bitter that even your touch is poisoned. It isn't a fate that Sam would wish upon anyone, least of all Gabriel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Will Stand Witness

  
"Here are two men, two young, _human_ men, who have seen the world teeter upon the edge of oblivion," the man had said. "Two young men who have lived on the fringes of society for almost their whole lives. Who have hunted monsters, and ghosts, and aliens - yes, aliens, although I doubt you realized it – and who have bartered with demons and gods, and you've never looked up at the night sky and wondered about what lies beyond this little blue planet. You've never longed to see the far side of a star, or the cities of a different world. You've never even given _thought_ to the frozen oceans of Woman Wept, the coral reefs of Gotta Floco…Because you've never known. You've never dared to look up and dream of it existing."

Which is pretty much how Dean and Sam Winchester end up following around a strange man with a blue box.

Who they later find out is also an alien.

Sort of par for the course, Sam thinks.

~

"Dean, don't touch it."

Dean's hand reaches out anyways, and Sam makes a face that he strongly suspects rates at least a seven on Dean's 'bitchface-scale' (and yeah, he totally knows about that, and no, he isn't going to say anything, because if he did Dean would just scowl at him and they'd fight and it would be a mess, and they've already dealt with enough messes to last a lifetime).

"It's a _pie_," Dean protests, and that's weird, because Sam peers at it and sees…oh holy shit, it's a notebook. It's _Leonardo da Vinci's notebook_. And yeah, he can totally see why Dean wants to touch it, because now even _Sam's_ fingertips are itching.

The Doctor makes a sound of amusement.

"To _you_, maybe," is what he says (except they're not totally sure about the 'he' part, because maybe he's like an angel and he only _looks_ like a dude). "It's a Mimic. Or, well, _you_ would call it a Mimic. I'm sure it calls itself something else. Don't worry, you can't touch it anyways. It's held behind three inches of gravity field."

Dean's fingers bounce off of thin air after a moment of resistance – like pushing against a rubber band. He scowls.

"It appears as what you desire the most," the Doctor continues. "Although it's limited. Can't appear as anything living. No plants, no animals, no people. And then you go to pick it up, and _that's_ when it gets you."

"_Gets_ you?"

"Well, yes. Latches on to you. Like a big old leech. And then it sucks all the nutrients from your body."

Dean backs away from the container, looking betrayed.

"But it's a _pie_," he says mournfully. Sam judges this a good time to move on to the next exhibit.

When the Doctor ("Doctor who?" "Nope! The Doctor. Just the Doctor.") had offered to show them 'the wonders of the universe,' Sam had been expecting…well, for a man who had a magical telephone box that could travel _in time and space_, he had sort of been expecting vast civilizations, libraries that spanned whole cities, huge repositories of information and culture. And the Doctor has mentioned that all these things _do_ exist – he's mentioned The Library (but he had looked sad, so sad, when Sam had asked about it), the planet-sized gallery of every book that's ever been written, now abandoned. The Human Empire, too, and Sam takes some comfort in the knowledge that, even after he and Dean are long gone, the world will keep turning, and people will eventually find themselves scattering across the galaxy, across _every_ galaxy. Humans will live on.

But the Doctor doesn't consider any of that to be worth looking at…at least, not for them. He tells fantastic stories about effervescent oceans and whole landscapes made out of diamonds, but the first place that they end up visiting is, in essence…a zoo. A huge zoo containing dangerous and interesting creatures from every corner of the universe, granted…but still. It's a zoo.

"Hey, check it out," Dean says. "It's an angel statue."

"Ah," the Doctor murmurs. Some part of his expression closes off, and Sam thinks there's probably a story _there_, too. "Yes. The Weeping Angels. That's not a real Angel you're seeing."

"Of course it isn't," Dean interrupts. "Cas is a real angel."

"Stop rubbing your boyfriend in peoples' faces," Sam protests.

"He isn't my _boyfriend_, you _dick_."

"That's totally not what you were saying the other night –"

The Doctor clears his throat. Sam scuffs his shoe against the tiled floor, feeling sort of like a kid who's been caught stealing sugar out of the sugar bowl.

"Whatever holds the image of an Angel, itself becomes an Angel," the Doctor says. He sounds like he's quoting something. He pauses in order to examine a plaque next to the exhibit, humming softly. "You're both right. And you're both wrong. This isn't an angel as _you_ know it."

"See," Dean says. Smug asshole.

"…But it used to be."

Sam tilts his head at the exact same time as Dean says "_What_?" The Doctor sighs, like thinking of it hurts him.

"There was an…incident," he says slowly. "Some eight-hundred years past, I believe. The details aren't important. What _is_ important is that it brought the legend of the Weeping Angels under a spotlight. They were always considered to be a myth, before. And it was learned that they were a fading race from before the beginning of time. Dwindling in number, slowly starving. Forever alone. And it was eventually discovered that the beings that _you_ know as angels – the Judeo-Christian angels, mind – and the Weeping Angels, were…one and the same. After a fashion."

"I'm not about to have a theological debate with an alien," Sam says, and the Doctor smiles at him.

"I'm not asking you to. I'm telling you what I know. This is what happens to an angel, one of _your_ angels, when they…what was the word? Plummet? Descend?"

"Fall," Dean says softly. "These things are…Fallen angels."

"After several thousand years of existing and being separated from their own kind, starving and never dying, yes. Time will do funny things to you, when you have to take the longer road."

"Sam," Dean croaks. "Tell me this doesn't look like anyone we know."

"If it's Michael, I'm all for it," Sam says, but leans over Dean's shoulder, peering at the little plaque. It contains descriptions of how the sculptor (or whoever had made the statue, because the word _looks_ like 'sculptor' but Sam gets the feeling it might mean something totally different) had avoided creating another Angel by carving a _nearly_ exact likeness. A few flaws here and there, a few changes, and it was essentially just a statue.

Sam stares at the thing's face, feeling panic well up inside him.

"We have to go," he says, and the Doctor makes a startled noise.

"Go? Go where? We haven't even reached the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal yet!"

~

"Find him!"

"Dude," Dean shouts, "it's not like I'm hooked up to some global tracking system for angels!"

"You're the one who's sleeping with one, shouldn't you know how to _find_ one when you need them?!"

The Doctor clears his throat; both Sam and Dean turn to look at him. Sam knows he probably looks like a crazy person, but he doesn't care.

The Doctor is pointing at a lever on the console of the TARDIS. Someone has helpfully taped a sticky note to it:

_ Finds-things-atron _

Love,  
Donna.

"It finds things," the Doctor says helpfully.

~

Gabriel is lounging on a beach in Tahiti when the TARDIS appears on the sand – Dean is the first to stumble out, blinking in the sudden sunlight (even though the TARDIS never really moves like a plane, Dean still equates it with flying, and has a tendency to become a little nervous if the trip takes longer than a few minutes). Following him is the Doctor, who's changed into flip-flops but, for whatever reason, has decided to keep the rest of his suit. He digs his toes into the sand and squints out at the ocean, looking characteristically impressed and astounded by the beauty of it.

Last is Sam, who hangs on to the TARDIS' door and just…watches, for a moment.

"I can _feel_ you," Gabriel calls out, then twists around on his beach blanket, sliding a pair of dark glasses down his nose and scowling at them. "_Staring_ at me. Now, maybe my memory is starting to go, but didn't I _specifically say_ that I wanted nothing more to do with you two? No more apocalypses, no more martyrdom, no more watching my brother and your brother eye-fuck each other across the room, end of story. _Done_."

"Oh God, Gabriel," Sam says. Because he's here. It's 2010 and Gabriel is still here, still flesh and blood, still _sane_. Not dying of loneliness and starvation. Not _enduring_ his immortality, but reveling in it.

"Kind of disturbing when you preface _my_ name with Dad's," Gabriel bitches. "I can start calling you 'John Sam Winchester,' if you'd like."

Sam almost trips over his own feet as he jogs across the sand, leaving deep imprints behind. He knows the Doctor and Dean are probably staring at him, but he's pretty sure that, if it had been Castiel they had seen, through that little gravity-shielded window, Dean would be reacting the same way.

He falls to his knees on Gabriel's beach blanket, grabs the archangel by the scruff of the neck, and then pulls him into a kiss that, in hindsight, was probably a shade more desperate than he had wanted to let on.

"Woo, Sammy!" He hears Dean call out, but he's too busy focusing on the slackness of Gabriel's mouth, surprise making him soft and pliant, the sun glinting golden off his hair, his tawny eyes.

"Never Fall," Sam murmurs against his mouth. "Please. _Please_, Gabriel, promise me you'll never do something that stupid. Promise me you'll still be making jokes and playing pranks and…and eating bioluminescent space-candy a million years from now. _Promise_."

"_Something's_ got you all riled up," Gabriel says dazedly.

"Promise, Gabriel!"

"Oh, for fuck's…_fine_, alright? I promise that I'm not about to take the plunge." There's a pause, in which they breathe into each other's mouths, Gabriel smelling like coconut and pineapple and Sam probably smelling like the TARDIS, foreign machinery and the burnt electrical smell of the wires, the half-sweet scent of the oil that the Doctor uses to grease the gears.

"Of course," Gabriel says, "now I have a little more incentive. That _wasn't_ just a one-time thing, was it?"

And Sam laughs, and kisses him again, and again, and pushes Gabriel down into the sand even though he can hear the Doctor asking questions ("Oh! This is one of those _romance_ things, isn't it. What they're doing is terribly romantic for humans, right? And angels, I suppose."), and then Dean leading him slowly away, giving them at least a thin veneer of privacy.  



End file.
